Monitoring and Control of Learning Own‐Race and Other‐Race Faces

Abstract

The own-race bias refers to the finding that individuals are better able to recognize faces of the same race or ethnicity compared with faces of another race or ethnicity. The current study examined whether the own-race bias was also evident in participants' predictions of memory performance and their self-regulation of learning. In three experiments, participants studied own-race and other-race faces and predicted the likelihood of recognizing each face on a future test. Experiment 1 showed that participants provided similar predictions for own-race and other-race faces, despite superior recognition of own-race faces. Experiments 2 and 3 permitted participants to control their study of faces and revealed better self-regulation of learning for own-race relative to other-race faces. Collectively, these experiments suggest that the own-race bias may partially reflect a metacognitive deficiency, as participants are less able to effectively self-regulate learning for other-race faces. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Poor recognition of other-race faces cannot always be explained by a lack of effort

“…Our results are consistent with those of three other recent studies that examined effort applied to own--race and other--race faces (M. G. Rhodes et al, 2013;Tullis et al, 2014;Wan et al, 2015). First, we replicated the finding of Wan et al (2015) that participants report applying more effort to other--race than own--race faces and yet showed a strong other--race effect.…”

“…Second, our viewing time results broadly agree with those of M.G. Rhodes et al (2013) and Tullis et al (2014). Both previous studies found no difference in self--paced study times for own--race versus other--race faces.…”

The effect of face race on metamemory: Examining its robustness and underlying mechanisms.

“…Contrary to these expectations, our results revealed a reliable effect of face race on both other- and self-prospective judgments, with no significant effects involving study time. Notably, this absence of study time differences based on face race echoes findings from prior studies, such as Rhodes et al (2013) and Tullis et al (2014), which also did not find evidence that participants allocated study time differently to same-race versus cross-race faces. The lack of a face race effect on study time could be interpreted as evidence against the discrepancy reduction model of self-regulated study (Dunlosky & Hertzog, 1998; Thiede & Dunlosky, 1999) and supporting the region of proximal learning (Metcalfe & Kornell, 2003, 2005) and agenda-based regulation models (Ariel et al, 2009; Dunlosky et al, 2011), as these two models do not necessarily predict differential study time allocation based on item difficulty alone.…”

“…To our knowledge, nine studies have investigated prospective or retrospective metamemory judgments for same- and cross-race faces, yielding mixed and conflicting outcomes (Arnold, 2013; Dodson & Dobolyi, 2016; Hourihan et al, 2012; Murphy et al, 2022; Nguyen et al, 2018; Rhodes et al, 2013, Experiment 1; Smith et al, 2004). Concerning prospective judgments, two out of four studies reported an effect of face race; however, in one instance, this effect was observed at the relative accuracy level (Hourihan et al, 2012), and in the other, this effect was observed at the absolute accuracy level (Nguyen et al, 2018).…”

Do students make effective decisions when regulating their learning of categories?

“…Kornell et al (2006, Experiment 2A) reported such an honordishonor advantage. Other research has reported similar honor-dishonor advantages when memorizing material (Li, Zhang, Li, & Li, 2018;Mulligan & Peterson, 2014;Rhodes, Sitzman, & Rowland, 2013;Son, 2010;Tullis, Fiechter, & Benjamin, 2018).…”